U.S. President Donald Trump’s push to assert U.S. dominance—marked by trade tensions and uncertainty—should not be viewed simply by the “chaos” those actions appear to create, says Brian Lee Crowley, managing director of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, a Canadian think tank.
Instead, he argues, they reflect Trump’s broader goals, his negotiating style, and Canada’s role in U.S. strategy.
Trump’s election last November and his repeated tariff threats shaped much of the Canadian political landscape in recent months, becoming one of the top federal election issues, and quickly reversing the fortunes of the governing Liberal party after it had become “deeply unpopular,” said Crowley in a recent interview with Jan Jekielek, host of The Epoch Times’ “American Thought Leaders” program.
In addition, he said, Trump’s ideas of wanting Canada to become the 51st U.S. state made many Canadians “deeply anxious,” prompting calls to reduce economic dependency on the United States or even join the European Union—a possibility Crowley says is unfeasible due to the deep economic integration between Canada and the United States.
But Crowley argues Trump’s strategy makes more sense when viewed through his priorities: restoring America to its “top nation status,” standing up to China as its “great rival,” recovering the promise of America “for the people who were left behind,” and bringing an “energy renaissance” to the American economy.
As for his negotiating strategy, Crowley says Trump inherited the American tradition of a “showman,” describing himself as a deal-maker and appearing unpredictable.
“I think he’s scaring the pants off the people that he wants to make deals with and bringing them to the table frightened out of their wits–this is just the way he works,” Crowley said.
An ‘Existential’ Relationship
The economic relationship between the United States and Canada is of a different nature for both sides, Crowley says. Unlike the United States, Canada’s economy relies largely on exports, which made up about one-third of its GDP in 2023. In contrast, U.S. exports accounted for just 11 percent of its economy that year.“While for Canada, the relationship with the United States is existential, for America the relationship with Canada is convenient, nice–not existential,” Crowley said.
He also pointed to the centuries-old “deep” integration between the two economies, describing them as a single North American economy that “happens to fall under the jurisdiction of two separate nation states.”
China Would Use Canada as a ‘Storehouse of Natural Resources’
The United States may require Canada to align with its China trade policy as a condition for continued access to the U.S. market, says Crowley, particularly to ensure Canada does not become a “backdoor” for Chinese goods entering America. He argues it would be “the perfectly legitimate thing for America to ask for.”“That will be a tough pill for the Liberal Party of Canada to swallow because they have, to a considerable extent, hitched their wagon to China as a rising power,” he said, arguing that the Liberal Party “has been an active promoter of China as an important partner for Canada for many years.”
“I think the biggest role that we play in that is that we have become a haven for money laundering, for the people who are actually behind the drug trade, which is mostly China,” he said.
“We have not been a reliable ally on defence,” Crowley said. “We have not been looking after the Arctic flank of North America.”
He added that Canada should “sit down with Trump” and negotiate on the full range of issues affecting both countries.
On the idea of Canada turning to China as a new top trading partner to replace the United States, as some floated amid trade tensions, Crowley said China could never offer Canada what the United States does.
“On almost every level, China is, in my view, a poor partner for Canada,” he said, adding that China wants to benefit from Canada’s resources but is not interested in a serious partnership involving Canadian manufacturers or processed goods.
“If we were to deepen our relationship with China, I’m here to tell you that China would only care about us as a storehouse of natural resources that they would be able to dominate,” he said.
“So in every way, China is a poor, indeed not just a poor substitute, a completely impossible substitute for our relationship with the United States.”
Canadian Identity
Trump’s comments about making Canada part of the United States and questioning the country’s existence “drove the anxiety levels of Canadians who cared about these issues to unprecedented heights,” said Crowley, adding it led to questions about Canadian identity.The difference between Americans and Canadians is hard to define, he said, not because it doesn’t exist, but because “the differences are subtle and hard to express.” He noted that the United States was born from a revolution against the Crown, while some territories that would later become Canada remained loyal to it.
“We tend to be people who believe more in the quiet, thoughtful evolution of institutions,” he said, contrasting it with a “radical break.”
“Canada has chosen an evolutionary path in which we put a little more emphasis on the idea of the common good [and] a little less emphasis on the idea of individual liberty,” he said, adding that Canadians are “great believers” in individual freedom in the context of an ordered society.
He noted that to people from outside North America, like Europeans, the differences between Americans and Canadians may not seem significant, but there are differences.
